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Women in Science

Building spin-off companies and collaborating with industry

Interview excerpt: Alison explains that it takes some years and several iterations to match a need from the end user with a product under development.

And at what stage would you know if the products are going to be successful, is it months, years?

From my experience, more likely years. We hope to launch our first product later this year, so we're going from the research and development stage to now building a product.

So this is based on your research, what are the timeframes for these developments?

Product development generally goes through some iterations. In my case, the company was founded in 2012 and like many companies it started off in one direction and gradually, as we learned more about the market, we changed what we were working on. It's now 2017, five years on. The bits that take the time are the non-academic parts.

As an academic, it is easy to think you've got great technology and a wonderful idea everybody will want. However, this is only the starting point for any great product.

Not everybody will want it in the form you thought of. You get feedback, then you refine it - the goal is to end up with a product trusted by the end user. It takes iterations and time to get to the point that you've really matched a current real world need with what you have.